a kiss with a fist
by Suk-fong
Summary: It isn't romantic. He broke a nose.


**disclaimer** : disclaimed.  
 **dedication:** MY MORNING NEWS GIRLS  
 **notes:** Thank you for reading, and the reviews and such. Tumblr is seevikifangirl  
 **title:** a kiss with a fist.

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She's one of those girls who's got a reputation. It just happens naturally, Riley is too innocent to get down on her catholic knees in bathrooms of parties; but she doesn't care-it's just some boy anyway. Red lipstick smirks get all the hooded eyed boys who follow her hips like she's red wine and they're whiskey-drunk, pushing her up against the wall, lifting her on the kitchen counter where she's at just the right height.

Riley knows of course-how wouldn't she know?- but talking about sex with Riley is like discussing unicorns. A lot of lively conversation, but not a lot of facts and Riley so far will be earning her white on her wedding with Mr. Perfect.

The thing is she likes sex, she's good at sex and she refuses to let some randoms off the street make her feel bad for enjoying the physical. Emotional drama isn't her thing-she's got enough drama with a mom, a dad whose never there, an almost step dad and an almost step dad's ex-lover. Let's throw in Riley, and Farkle and Ranger Roy plus her psuedo family in the Mathews and drama with a laugh track is more than abound in her life. She doesn't need the relationship drama, she needs the physical. The quick release of a locker room fuck or in the back seat of the only sixteen year old from New York with an honest to god car.

And plus like she's on the pill long before she and Billy got bored and found out what happens when you make different decisions than just watching a bad movie. She was on the patch before when she was fourteen to clear up the acne and then some asshole saw it and told everyone she was having sex-she wasn't but no one would listen anyway so why bother denying it.

And yeah there could be Josh, but age isn't just a number when you're on other sides of eighteen and while he might buy her beer when her fake doesn't work it doesn't mean he's willing to fuck her because she's hot but she's not statuary rape hot.

And if sixteen was sweet than seventeen is the blonde bombshell. She walks the line hips swaying to a beat in her head from a song you've never heard of by the newest band you'll never remember at a party you were never invited to, between jail bait for the college boys and an epic high school romance about the one who got away. She's Maya Hart and she breaks hearts-and yes that is such a cliché line and it sucks but Riley was the one who said it half drunk on spiked lemonade on the window seat in her bedroom one hot Sunday in July when she thought maybe this is happiness; wine cooler drunk with her best friend while Farkle and Ranger Roy sun bath on the fire escape, shirtless with ice cream.

It's a moment of happiness before the hell that will be senior year, and she wants to bottle it up for forever.

But she's one of those girls who has a reputation and it doesn't matter what is true and what is false and what actually happened at the party at Missy's house on Friday. Because no one cares about the truth, they just care about the words and the rumors and okay so maybe Jake with the earring and the hipster scarf wasn't single and maybe the heart broken wasn't his and maybe he had lipstick the same shade as hers all over his collar bone and maybe he has a wonder tongue and he went down on her first without her prompting-unheard of from high school boys.

But the word slut is out in the air, twisting and cutting like steel wool. It steals the air in her lungs and oh she thinks for a moment she might faint from light-headedness. She's heard it before, heard slut used to describe her. But never to her face, always behind her back and she doesn't know how to react, her red lipstick smirk not fading as she struggles to come to terms with what Jake has said. His girlfriend misty eyed and angry beside him, nodding alongside him.

She doesn't have a chance to say something cool, something designed to find the chink in the already insecure girl's armor-like if she's a slut than the girlfriend is a prude. Can't keep her boyfriend happy can she? It's cruel and digging but she knows cruel and digging and empathy and love is only for Riley, only for Farkle and sometimes Isadora and maybe even Ranger Rick.

She doesn't have time because Jake is rocketing back against the locker, his nose maybe broken but it's for sure bleeding, and Lucas is standing, looking like he'll break more bones demanding that Jake apologizes before he's unable to talk.

It's too silent in the hallway. Riley looks petrified but she's glaring at Jake and his girlfriend Jordyn-with-a-y.

Jake doesn't apologize, instead he invokes _whore_ like he's got a death wish and Farkle isn't fast enough to stop Lucas's fists-and there's this sinking feeling that maybe he wasn't fast on purpose and it's hysterical in the punch you in the gut sort of way, Farkle's six three and weighs next to nothing-lanky to Lucas's tall build with muscle. And there isn't a way in heaven or hell Farkle can restrain Lucas, but he's holding him back from rupturing a spleen.

'Stop,' she says. It doesn't make him stop because Lucas is angry, very angry and she doesn't know why but she knows this isn't worth getting expelled for and he knows it to but he's being so stupid that he's not thinking beyond fist meet body part and inset pummel action and she's not getting Lucas expelled because of who she fucked.

'Stop,' she repeats and this time he stops. He doesn't look at her but he stops trying to fight Farkle and Jake. Riley's holding her hand and it keeps the steel in her spine more than Lucas beating the shit out of Jake because she doesn't know _how_ the ever loving fuck how to process that.

'Let's go,' she says instead of anything else she could say. Riley is holding her hand and the crowd parts like the red sea, Farkle worried about Lucas who just glare straight ahead.

She's got a reputation you know. She's an easy fuck, good for booze and a good time. Doesn't want your feelings because she can't handle her own. She's the type of girl that gets immortalized in stories, the girl who got away, the girl you dream about an escape, the girl you want to save. The girl who fucks in the moon light and dances on teacher's desks. They say she's the girl who is so damn broken but smiles anyway because her life's a giant fucking joke and she's the punch line.

He's got a reputation. It's something he went out of his way to cultivate. A nice guy, a good guy. Someone people want to spend time with for the right reasons, not because he's "edgy" or "cool" or "dangerous"-not that that's the only reason why people wanted to be his friend back in Texas.

But New York was a new start, a new place, a new him. There would be no fighting, no phone calls home, nothing to make his mom sad. But at the same time, he's in high school-he can't live like a saint. He's got a baseball scholarship riding on this and drunken mishaps are permanent records and those long hard years of keeping his temper, doing the homework and going to class are not going to be wasted by one night of teenage debauchery.

So he goes to the parties, he drinks his beer and he dances and plays beer pong with water-and no one calls him out because they're all ready and willing to get way too sloppy. They're sixteen in a city where no one sleeps and being upper middle class means there's no trouble that can happen without mom or dad bailing you out. It's a dangerous line, and Riley is tiptoeing cooler drunk where she giggles at everything and lets boys put her in their lap and kiss her like the world will end come two in the morning. He watches Farkle and Smackle talk-debate-flirt-whatever it takes but never quite make it up the stairs. It's precious and precocious, something a bit deeper than just a high school romance.

He gets girlfriends, each one last about a year and it's only them. It's his thing, serial monogamy and it makes him feel stable. Sometimes it's boring. The girls he dates are the right type of girls, with very good answers, and good families. The girl next door for his southern boy. He gets a reputation of a boyfriend, a good guy who'll be a good man one day. He listens you know, to all the things he doesn't give a damn about but he makes you feel like you're the most important person in the world.

His relationships are steady, no fighting just smooth sailing and it always seems to draw to an end just about the time it's June and the summers are his freedom. Summer is the time when it's just him and Farkle and Riley and Maya, and he can just not care what other people think because they've got a non-judging pact and it's the best think about New York-well that and gelato on fire escapes and road trips to New Jersey to go to the boardwalks and beaches. It's the time when he's not worried about keeping his anger in check when there's nothing really there that could make him angry because it's just fun.

He's worked so hard for his good guy image. And it's just gone up in flames, kerosene poured on his damp flame.

It's a word-a vile word but just a word and it's not true, and even it was it doesn't mean she's less of a person. It's just a word but it feels like that stupid hipster with his dirty want to be beard and his v-neck sweater stuck a car battery in his gut, the way his nerves are jumping. He's just to blame about this as she is but he's the one calling her it, lip drippling like he's better than her.

It's so easy too easy and he doesn't stop. It's one hit, years of keeping his temper locked down, a jack-in-the-box just waiting for the music to stop and he's gone. Zero to one hundred in less than a second and he's just itching to come again. It's ecstasy and an orgasm watching the douchebag hit the locker, stunned into silence with his pathetic girlfriend screams. It should worry him how much he enjoys it, but that's not something he's thinking about as he cracks his knuckles.

He gives a chance-he's a good guy you know. And he gives the slimy asshole a chance, it wouldn't really matter either way because he knows he's broken a nose and he hopes it heals crooked because that would make him smile.

He doesn't take the chance-not a very smart man. But then he says something worse and he didn't know it could get worse, but this isn't a car battery in his gut this is a stick of a dynamite and a Hail Mary and that asshole is never going to walk again because he does not get to talk about her like that not in the slightest.

It's quiet in his head, calm almost. The eye of the storm sort of thing and he thinks it'll be so easy to break more bones, it will be so easy and everything will be done. And everything will be gone.

She makes him stop, he can hear the thank you in her voice laced in the monotone. She's hurt, he hurt her and he can beat the douchebag black and blue-and he did-but it won't make her feel better. He doesn't know how to make her feel better.

The silence on the way to Riley's house is when it all sinks in, when it becomes crystal fucking clear as mud he just destroyed everything and he knows when he gets home there will be a phone call from the principle saying he's been expelled from school half way through his senior year. Two schools for fighting. Good fucking job.

He threw away everything he's worked for because some guy called Maya a...a word.

He waits on the fire escape for someone-probably Riley to ask why, and then Farkle would dissect it, try to figure out what happened, what caused it. He waits because he wants to know the answer too but nothing comes and so they just sit in a row, mismatched duckling in a stunned sort of silence.

They all know everything has changed and this is the type of chance that didn't happen naturally-this was man made and full of destruction and there's not a way to bridge Lucas from before to the Lucas of after and maybe this is what happens when you coil anger too tightly in your stomach, suffer fools too lightly all for a good guy image that itches like you're caught in spider webs.

Maybe it's just who he is.

Maybe he's just angry and likes hitting people-well he's not that stupid, he's more than that. He's loyal and smart and damn good at baseball. He just has anger issues that by burying for five years euprted and he tried to curb stomp the head of some high school hipster who cheated on his girlfriend and insulted Maya.

He's got a reputation; he's a straight shooter a good guy. Homecoming King last October and student council president that makes people trust him. They call him trustworthy, the type of guy a girl would walk home with at night without worrying about the pepper spray in her purse or holding the rape whistle at the ready.

He's a _good guy._ And he just broke a guy's nose.

Riley is the one who orders the Chinese from that hole in the wall Maya loves even though she is positive that she'll get a transmittable disease from eating there; she and Farkle go and pick it up. It doesn't take a genius to know what they're doing.

'You shouldn't have,' she says after a long time when the silence is just awkward and he's thinking getting a tooth canal without anaesthesia would be preferable. 'It's the stupidest thing you could have done.'

'Yeah.'

'But I'm glad you did it.'

'Me too,' he tells her. And it's funny how it feels like freedom. He's always thought the truth will set you free is such bullshit. Sometimes the truth hurts and it's not needed for people. If the truth won't change anything and it will just harm someone why tell it? But he leans back, head hitting the brick of Riley and Farkle's building watching the street traffic pass by and wincing at the sun hitting his eyes at an angle that feels like he could be blinded by it, but at this moment with Maya beside him looking anywhere but at him, he's truthful. He's glad he did it, he doesn't regret it, and he'd do it again.

He has a reputation you know. He's a loyal guy. The type of guy who will stand up and protect the people he loves even if it hurts him. He doesn't regret what he does because he does what he believes. They call him a gentleman, got some old fashion Southern standards for the shade of New York. It's true; but people always forget Texas is known for its bulls and bulls have impaled themselves on their own horns just to prove a point.

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 **A/N:** Thanks for reading. Please review if you've read.


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